By Michael Stevenson

The photographs that occupy the header of my Pas De Merde blog are each the work of Pierre Jamet. Jamet (1910-2000) was a singer (the tenor voice in Les Quatre Barbus), active outdoorsman, and above all – the gifted photographer who so brilliantly captured young French people enjoying their country’s hillsides, lakes, and seashore during the 1930s. I especially love the above photo, “Four Pair of Legs.” It beautifully captures the feeling of being on vacation – the clashing sensations of both relaxation and exhilaration that nourish our summer souls. Are the children’s legs dangling from the bridge as they take a rest after their hike? Or are they preparing to jump into the cool, refreshing waters of a stream below? I like to imagine that the children drop from the bridge into the railroad car of a passing train, carrying goose feathers – destination unknown [ . . . ]

PARIS – French police have banned a demonstration planned to take place in front of the US Embassy in Paris on Saturday as protests mount around the world over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Paris police department said on Friday it had decided to ban the demonstrations because of the risks of social disorder and health dangers from large gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trouble had broken out at another anti-police demonstration in the French capital on Wednesday. Thousands had turned up despite a police ban on the event in memory of Adama Traore, a 24-year old black Frenchman who died in a 2016 police operation which some have likened to Floyd’s death.

Unrest has broken out across the United States after the killing of Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.

“We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”

Pope Francis this morning spoke of his “great concern” at “the disturbing social unrest” in the United States following “the tragic death of George Floyd,” which he attributed to “the sin of racism.”

“We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,” the pope said.

He did so in a message addressed to his “dear brothers and sisters in the United States,” meaning the entire nation and not just its 70 million Catholics, a senior Vatican source told America. He spoke to them during his virtual public audience from the library of the apostolic palace on June 3, which was carried by Vatican Media.

IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH

By General James Mattis

I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

French Films

CITE MOI

“I am in no mood to be deceived any longer by the crafty devil and false character whose greatest pleasure is to take advantage of everyone.” – Camille Claudel

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani – portrait of Paul Guillaume

““I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless.” – Albert Camus

“One must keep a few smiles aside to laugh at oneself on joyless days” – Charles Trenet http://yquotes.com/quotes/charles-trenet/#ixzz4NRfqbihb

Jeanne Cherhal “If you come back, I’ll cancel everything”

“I work in whatever medium likes me at the moment.” – Marc Chagall

“All right, Popeye’s here! get your hands on your heads, get off the bar, and get on the wall!” – The French Connection

It’s Madison time…

“All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl” – Jean-Luc Godard

“You think that being a girl is degrading, but secretly, you’d love to know what it’s like, wouldn’t you?”

“Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly.” – Robert Doisneau

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” – Degas

“The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters… and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.” – Jacques Cousteau

“The harmonica is a great instrument.” – Toots Thielemans

“Departure” – Arthur Rimbaud

“I am a child who is getting on.” – Marc Chagall

“Besides, he’s a saint.” – Au Hasard Balthazar

“C’est extra. C’est extra.C’est extra.” – Leo Ferre

“A woman has to be intelligent, have charm, a sense of humor, and be kind. It’s the same qualities I require from a man.”

“Come, come, my baby come. I will show you the world” – Jain

“Oh, My man I love him so” – Mistinguett

“When you write a song, most of the words you use are in black and white, and then, from time to time, you use one that’s in color. These words in color are a part of ourselves, because we give them a meaning. If you like, we give them a third dimension.” – Jacques Brel

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” – Auguste Rodin

“You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they’re simply unbearable” – Marguerite Duras

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius. Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” – Simone de Beauvoir

“Spira, spera.” (Breathe, hope.) – Victor Hugo

Jacques Tati “You won’t find another Chaplin, you won’t find another Keaton, because the school is closed.”

“Sanctuary!” – Quasimodo

“Let’s play with sound, forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct – the same way punk did” – Yann Tiersen

““All sins are attempts to fill voids.” – Simone Weil

“I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.” – Baudelaire

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” – Claude Monet

“The greatest murderers attend the highest Masses” – Georges Brassens

“Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things that revolve around love.” – Marc Chagall

“I live in the corner of old Montmartre My father comes home sozzled every night” – Zaz

“Although I felt ashamed of it at one time, I do like Breathless very much, but now I see where it belongs – along with Alice in Wonderland. I thought it was Scarface.” – Jean-Luc Godard

“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” – Colette (Portrait by Jacques Humbert

“One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters; that’s our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time’s horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without cease. But with what? With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose. But get drunk!”

“The theater is too deep for me. I prefer bicycling” – Jean Gabin

French Music

Pas De Merde

J’adore : Tom Plevnik Photography

check into a nice hotel, and my plan is I’m going to eat some fucking cheese and I’m gonna get drunk. ― Anthony Bourdain Or in my case, check into a nice Airbnb, and my plan is I’m going to take some fucking good photos and I’m gonna get drunk 😉 My departure to Paris […]